China has slaughtered more than 13,000 fowl after dead birds tested positive for bird flu.
Xinhua News Agency quotes China's Ministry of Agriculture saying 519 fowl had died and were confirmed as having the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
The fowl died in Hetian prefecture in Xinjiang, China's far western region that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Xinhua says the ministry and Xinjiang regional government in Xinjiang ordered the killing 13,218 fowl as a precaution.
Eight people have contracted bird flu this year in China, and five have died, but no sick poultry have been found in the areas where the patients fell ill this year, despite officials inspecting hundreds of thousands of birds.
One of the five was a 31-year-old woman from Urumqi. Hetian is 920 kilometres south of Urumqi.
AP